Jerks.

Please allow me a moment to rant about my Geography of Costa Rica class.

I dislike this class. I always have. I never know what's going on, or when anything is due, or what we're even doing half the time. Well, today I had an epiphany. I am not failing to understand the organizational structure of the class; THERE IS NO ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE TO THE CLASS.

See, I was under the assumption that we turned in our homework the week after she handed it out. That's a reasonable assumption, right? Well, that's what I did. However, apparently, it's kind of due whenever we feel like turning it in. This explains why she's been handing back our first homework assignment for weeks -- people keep turning it in way "late." Today she went around the room and took inventory of all the homework assignments she was still owed, and I was one of like, two people who had turned everything in.

Today we were supposed to have a test in this class. Well, that's what the syllabus said, anyway. I had studied. I could tell you where the Cordilleras de Guanacaste, Tilaran, Talamanca, and Volcanica Central were. I could tel you that the three highest peaks in Costa Rica are Chirripo, Kamuk, and Buena Vista. I could name the three highest volcanoes (Irazu, Turrialba, Poas... I think... I might have forgotten since 10am this morning). I had studied climates, I could ramble off bad defintions of gegoraphy of cartography, I knew where the most polluted rivers were on a map, I could tell you that the Cocos placa was in the process of subduccion under the placa Caribe, and this was responsible for much of the topography and geothermal activity in Costa Rica. Can we guess what happened?...

She decides to take a vote: Do we want to have a "concrete" test right here and now in class, or do we want to take a more abstract test home next week as a take-home test? I'm going to guess that 3/4 of the class either hadn't studied or had otherwise forgotten, so you can guess which option won. One more test/paper was EXACTLY what I needed right now. Way to ruin it for those of us who studied, jerks.

In other news, me and a couple grupo/international student buddies decided we wanted to "buffearnos" (to make oneself buff -- not a real word) in the gym at the UCR. We figured it'd be like, pay our monthly dues, go over there, take a few classes, lift some weights, whatever. We were very wrong.

First, they make you have "citas" (appointments) with one of the trainers at the gym. They ask you what your goals are, and then they design a program that you're supposed to follow. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that this probably would have gone better if it were in English. My program consists of a lot of using weight machines. Actually, it consists ONLY of using weight machines (except for like, one thing, I think). I don't particularly like weight machines. They make you dependent on a gym, and that's not conducive to exercise (not like knowing gym-free exercises convinced me to exercise all summer, but we're going to ignore that detail right now). All of my exercises are also like, isolated arm and leg exercises. Booorrrring. Perhaps it sounds good to some of you that they make an exercise plan for you, but it doesn't sound so good when you don't like your exercise plan.

So far, we've been to a spinning class and a "general" class (kind of like dance aerobics). Spinning was good. The general class, though .... I was pretty bad at that. It wasn't even hard physically until like the last 5 minutes, but trying to follow what the instructor was doing was really hard, because I didn't understand what any of the moves were called and I couldn't hear her over the blaring music. I think I'll be sticking to spinning from now on. Dance aerobics in a foreign language = bad.

I got back from "general" just in time for dinner. Unfortunately, my host mom made the green bean/carrot/hamburger thing again. Ugggg. I also thought I had trained her into letting me serve my own rice and beans, but she's slipping. Before I go on a "I hate that nasty green bean/carrot/hamburger thing" rant, I should begin my "I'm not 5; I can serve myself" rant.

I'm not 5. I can serve myself.
I can't say for sure if this is the way it is in every family, but in my family, my host mom put food on plates. These servings get heated in the microwave, and then placed on the table. Once all of the plates are on the table, we are called to eat. I do not like being served food. There are times when I don't want 5 cups of rice for dinner. There are times, like tonight, when I would definitely have put some different portion sizes on my plate than what ended up on my plate. And of course, because it's on my plate, I feel obligated to eat as much as I can, even if I don't want to. I end up eating a lot of stuff that I would, given my druthers, not be eating. This does not make me a happy camper. I am not 5. I can serve myself.

(If you're wondering why it all gets microwaved before dinner, here's why: She makes all the food for the day at like, 6am. Then it sits on the stove/in the rice cooker/in the toaster oven all day -- these appliances are, of course, off. So when lunchtime rolls around, she heaps out some servings, heats them up in the microwave, and lunch is served. The same routine happens for dinner. FYI, I also don't like having to eat the same thing for lunch and dinner).

"I hate that nasty green bean/carrot/hamburger thing"
This food is apparently called "picadillo," but you'll see that in a second, as I feel like my internal thought process is the best way to explain this. Text in italics was not voiced aloud.

Linda: [comes downstairs and sees nasty vegetable food served on her plate] UGGG! BLECKY!! EWWW! GAG! Not this again!! Well, at least I can pretend I'm not hungry because I was just at that gym class. [sits down] I don't know why you decided this was an acceptable food choice, because it's most definitely not.

Host mother: [in the kitchen] "Linda, le gusta la comida?" (Do you like the food?)

Linda: Si. No you don't, you liar! Stop lying! She's gonna keep feeding you this stuff if you don't speak up!! Bad Linda, BAD!! [Begins picking at vegetables, trying to determine the best way to eat as few of them as possible]. Thank god for beans and rice. At least I can use that to drown out the vegetable flavor. [Slowly begins eating forkfulls of nasty vegetable dish washed down with beans and rice.]

Host father: "No le gusta el picadallo?"

Linda: Well, I guess picking at it was kind of obvious. Um, no es mi favorito. Es bueno! Pero solo no es mi favorito. (It's not my favorite. It's good, just not my favorite.) That was the understatement of a lifetime.

Host mother: (says something I don't remember) Quiere algo diferente? (do you want something else?)

Linda: No, no. Me gusta el picadillo. Esta bien. Great... now I'm gonna have to eat it. Way to go, self, way to go.

So I ate as much of it as I could, although in all honesty, I really wasn't that hungry. All I'm gonna say is that if I could just serve myself, this wouldn't happen. Sigh.